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Excited About 2012? You Should Be!

January 2nd, 2012 · Planning, Process, Self Mastery

Say these four statements out loud.

  • 2012 will be a great year. 
  • It doesn’t matter  what happens in the economy or in politics. 
  • I will have myself and my business prepared for success.
  • I am excited about 2012!

It is easier to prepare for something defined rather than something vague, so you have to define success for yourself and your business.  Define it for yourself first and then for your business.  Here are a couple of questions you may find helpful:

  • What do you want your business to provide to you in 2012? 
  • What will your business need to achieve in order to provide it to you? 

Answering these questions and setting your beliefs (first 4)  are key to getting  the results you want.  The next step is to create a plan.  Reread the previous statement and check your gut.  How do you feel when you think about planning?

Make Planning Fun

I find it more fun when instead of pushing myself to get it done I allow myself to be carried along by a good process in a fun environment.  A good process is one that asks you interesting questions about each area of your business such that you will really think them through and carefully choose what deserves your focus.  It should do this with fill-in-the-blank planning tools , explanations and help, human help, right there to move you forward. 

The environment must support getting the plan done in a fun and effective manner.  To think outside the box you have to get outside the box.  Get away from your office and your phone and the all the interruptions so you can breathe freely and think about the big picture.

The environment should also stimulate new thinking and include other like minded folks that you can bounce ideas off and learn from.  A group of business owners and leaders gets this nicely done.  First timers get help from those more experienced and the more experienced get fresh ideas from folks new to the process.

With the right process, the right training, the right tools and friendly, stimulating help you can get a plan done that will help you every day.

Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Experience shows that humans are pretty darn good at planning ahead for 13 weeks.  Beyond that it gets a little sketchy!  In our process we only do detailed planning for the next 90 days.  We do set longer term goals we just don’t try to get specific beyond the next 90. 

Good business  is to give your plan a scrub and refresh every 90 days.  These plans tend, especially the early ones, to get a little reality mud splashed on ‘em.  Don’t worry – that’s what should happen!

Walkin’ Tall

The biggest result of planning is not the plan.  The biggest result of planning is the effect on you.  Whenever we learn or strengthen a skillset we feel better about ourselves and more confident.  To learn to walk you had to fall down a few times.  As adults we avoid situations that leave us walking taller because we are afraid we’ll fall-down-go-boom a few times.  So we stay in our comfort zone.  Funny thing is that staying in our comfort zone is falling down.  We become, over time, sheepish.  Say bahhh to that!

Take a Small Step Towards a Great 2012

Reread the 4 statements out loud again.  If that seems a little out of the norm – good!

  • 2012 will be a great year.
  • It doesn’t matter what happens in the economy or in politics.
  • I will have myself and my business prepared for success.
  • I am excited about 2012!

Really successful people are not the mainstream.  You’ll have to get comfortable with being a little different to have great success.

You Don’t Have to Do It Alone

Reinventing the wheel is not time well spent.  Find your local ActionCOACH (like me Winking smile ) and sit in on a planning session.  The process, the tools, the training, the help and the sounding boards will all be there waiting for you.  You’ll get comfortable right away and start having fun during the continental breakfast and it gets better from there. 

2012 is the time for you feel great about your business.  Read the 4 statements out loud to your self again.  I’ll wait right here.

  • 2012 will be a great year.
  • It doesn’t matter what happens in the economy or in politics.
  • I will have myself and my business prepared for success.
  • I am excited about 2012!

Now click this link to find out about my upcoming planning session – we call it GrowthCLUB.  Walk tall and sign up.  I promise a fun and effective planning experience or I’ll give you %120 percent of your money back – no it’s not free – I do this for a living!!

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

denniswillis@actioncoach.com

216-965-9129

or text the word profit to the number 50500 to get a text message with my contact data – yeah, I’m a bit of a geek too!

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Do You “Xerox” the Same Week Over and Over?

December 29th, 2011 · Planning

How big is your pile of past weeks that all look pretty much the same?  Is it big enough to do something about? Or will you bow your head in denial, pull on the harness and drive yourself through yet another week of life eating sameness?

Okay, that seems a little harsh.  It is just that I know so many of you business owners and leaders that do exactly that – just copy last week onto next week and go to work.

I love working with those that have turned that corner and are working on growing themselves and their businesses.  I get to be so much more effective in these circumstances.  My heart, though, goes out to those of you still slogging away, day to day.  There, but for some strong help I received, go I.

I sure did resist doing things differently.  I still do.  It has not been something I do naturally.  I’ve made all the excuses, blamed not doing it differently on so many urgent things and spent years in denial.

It all left me with a pile of similar weeks to look back upon and pretty much the same looking forward.  Figuring out how to get me to change has been quite a learning experience.  It still is.  I have people who help me stay on the ball now.

I’ve made the transition from “I have to do things differently next week” to “I get to do things differently next week”. That one little word change makes a world of difference to me.

I got some help and learned a new process.  Botched it up quite a bit at first.  Stuck to it and made great progress.  Passing it on to others helps me get better with it all the time.

If you are copying the same week over and over and sick of it – then maybe what helped me might help you.

An easy first step might be to subscribe to this blog.  Enter your email in the box at the right near the top.  You will simply be notified when I post an update.

If you’ve really had it with copying the same week over and over, contact me or click the link below.  Text the word “profit” to the number 50500 to get my phone number and other contact data.

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

Are you a business owner or leader that wants better results?  Here is a flyer for my upcoming workshop; GrowthCLUB.

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“There is NO WAY to Happiness…”

December 28th, 2011 · Positive Thinking, Self Mastery

I had a chat, earlier today, with an unhappy teenager.  I lick my chops at such an opportunity.  I’m hoping that sharing some of what I’ve learned somewhat later (okay a bunch later) in life will give them a chance to really enjoy themselves earlier than I learned to enjoy my life.

She made a kind of a statement I consider self-disabling.  I, of course, set her up with a question.  I just want to have fun too.  The question was (because she seems a bit withdrawn) “What irritates you?”  She fell right into my trap and began telling me things that irritate her.  One was “guys with long hair really irritate me.”

So I asked her where does “irritation” exist?  This throws a lot of people at first.  It is an odd question most have never considered.  It gets confused with where does the “irritant” exist but that is not what I’m after.  After just a bit of prodding she answers “in my brain.”  “That’s right, irritation, anger, frustration and happiness all exist only in our brains, right?”  I get blank looks quite often.

“Do long haired guys have the ability to reach into your brain and flip your “irritated” switch on?” I asked.  “No,” she answered.  “Then why do you say ‘They irritate you’? I pressed further.  More blank looks.

Here is a bad thinking habit I sometimes have and often hear; <someone or something> makes me <feel some emotion>.  Examples;

  • She makes me mad
  • He annoys me
  • Banks frustrate me
  • Planning bores me
  • Public speaking frightens me

These are all, simply, lies.  Self disabling lies.  Dr. House is right, everyone lies.  The ones we tell ourselves are the worst.

No one and no thing can reach into your head and make you feel anything.  You, consciously or sub-consciously, choose your response to events.

Event + Response = Outcome.

You can’t control events and you can’t control outcomes.  We all need to reduce the amount of time we lie to ourselves and pretend other people and things have the power to choose our responses.

The way to get started is to rewrite your thought habit.  Instead of thinking “That makes me mad” think “I choose to get mad about that”.  This simple rewrite gives you back your power.  It also gives you responsibility, accountability and ownership for your state of mind.  Instead of thinking “he irritates me” think “I choose to get irritated by him”.  You can still choose the same way – just take credit for it.

If you do then you’ll start wondering why you choose to spend so much of your life angry or frustrated or sad or whatever you are choosing.  Then you’ll make changes that will amaze you.

See my previous posts to learn more about changing your thinking habits.

So finally you’ll understand this 2500 year old quote.  Something I choose to be quite amused about.

“There is no way to happiness because happiness is the way.” – Lao Tzu

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

Are you a business owner or leader that wants better results?  Here is a flyer for my upcoming workshop; GrowthCLUB.

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Two Good Books and a Great Gadget!

December 27th, 2011 · Process, Self Mastery

This is the best book on team building I’ve read in an age!  Thanks to coach Kelli Hoskins for the recommendation.

How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers, and Project Teams

Stop interfering with your own success.  This is a great guide to coaching.  Thanks to great friend and client Don Jason for the recommendation.

You Already Know How to Be Great: A Simple Way to Remove Interference and Unlock Your Greatest Potential

I am now jealous of my friends with these Kindle/Android tablets!

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi

 

Disclaimer – using the above link may get me a commission from Amazon.  It hasn’t yet, but I’m told it may.  I only recommend books I’ve purchased and read and loved.

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The Most Important Word

December 27th, 2011 · Negative Thinking, Positive Thinking, Self Mastery

A dear friend recently said this to me in a bit of an angry and frustrated tone, “I’ve been trying to change this for 40 years!”

Not being a mind reader I’ve thought and thought about what those words and  tone actually meant.  He said that, because being an unreasonable friend, I was pushing him to change a thinking habit.

The thinking habit he has wanted to change is the one where he criticizes himself very harshly when he doesn’t do something perfectly.  He will even verbalize it as “I’m such an idiot” or “I’m terrible at that” or “I really screwed that up – as usual” or “I’m just not good enough”.

You may recognize that the line “I’ve been trying to change this for 40 years” is yet another self criticism.  I pointed this out and he responded that “NO, it’s just a fact.”

Facts are not really facts.  Einstein taught us that everything is relative.  Post Einstein-ian physics has taught us the universe is a very very weird place where things exist and don’t exist at the same time.  Where we are all, at this very moment, hurtling through space at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour while we think we are sitting still and reading (or writing!).  And we are not even sitting on the chair we that we think, it is a fact, that we are sitting on.  We are actually floating above it upon nuclear forces.  We think it’s a fact that we and the chair are solid things when we and the chair are mostly empty space.   Facts are arguably opinions about which we have feelings.

The common example we all know is; “the glass is half empty” vs. “the glass is half full”.  While both of these statements are logically equivalent they have very different effects on us when we think them.  One has us focusing on what we don’t have and one on what we do have.  One has us feeling sad about what we don’t have and one has us feeling grateful about what we do have.  There are deeper levels than this but consider how you want to feel.

Just recently a very talented, successful and well loved singer drank herself to death.  You may know who I mean.  If not, I’m sure you can think of a similar case.  I’m guessing she chose to think in a way that left her feeling angry, frustrated and sad.  I’m guessing she drank to numb the ensuing pain.   Choosing to think this way seems to know no boundaries, economic or otherwise.

Thinking habits do not change easily.  Habits are well trained neural networks that are part of our sub-conscious mind.  Consciously realizing we have a habit we wish to change does not make the neural network go away.  It is a thinking muscle, if you will, that must be consciously retrained until we have the habit that we want.  This process takes time and discipline.  You have to “hear” in your mind the response generated by your sub-conscious and then consciously replace it with the thought-response you want.  Saying it out loud – thereby getting in one repetition of the new habit will reinforce the new sub-c0nscious thought-response you are trying to create – helping make it a habit.

This can be slow and detailed work.  My favorite phrase here is “slow down to speed up.”  The more you slow down and catch your thinking and change it the faster the replacement becomes habit.  Most of us think because we’ve learned something or become consciously aware of a bad habit we will change it immediately. Then when the same bad habit shows up a few moments or days later we get frustrated that what we learned didn’t stick.  Then we criticize ourselves and, often, give up.  Because we didn’t learn it the first time we stoop to bad mouthing ourselves and quitting.

So the most important word is forgive.  We simply must understand and forgive ourselves.  Understanding the nature of changing a habit helps us not have unrealistic expectations of ourselves.  Forgiving ourselves for continuing a behavior we know we don’t want gives us the permission and encouragement to keep working at changing it. 

NASA learned it takes about 30 days of continuous reinforcement to rewrite a strong neural network.  With intermittent reinforcement it takes longer.  Forgiving yourself and consciously rewriting the thought until you have the new habit simply takes as long as it takes.  Getting mad at yourself and beating yourself up – just kills you.  Forgiving yourself and not rewriting the thought is another way of dying.  You have to to both, forgive yourself and make the conscious effort to rewrite the thought.

If you are not growing you are dying.  Create the lifelong habit of growing your thinking and all the moments of your life become opportunities to become a stronger you.

To my friend – you should think “I am so happy to learn, now, how to make changes I have wanted to make for 40 years.”  Forgive yourself for not getting it perfectly right every time and keep making the effort.  It is the effort that makes you strong.

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

Are you a business owner or leader that wants better results?  Here is a flyer for my upcoming workshop; GrowthCLUB.

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Crazy Busy? Here is What Successful People Do…

December 23rd, 2011 · Planning, Positive Thinking, Self Mastery

There is a very strong element to the thinking of really successful people that is very, very uncommon.

Here are examples of how most of us think.

Failure Mode 1

  • ‘I don’t have enough time’
  • ‘I need more time’
  • ‘There just aren’t enough hours in the day’

This is failure mode thinking.  A now failed business owner once said to me ‘I love being a business owner – I get to work any 80 hours a week I want.’

He was too busy to do what successful people do.

Failure mode 2

  • ‘I know’

He already knew better.  He shut down any suggestions with an ‘I know’ and would explain how he was already doing that.  The busy-busy-ness in his head was so intense he really couldn’t listen.  Instead he would explain and defend what he was already doing – even though it was not succeeding.

I know is another way of saying ‘shut up.’  ‘I know’ stops you from actually listening.  Big ‘I know-ers’ keep themselves from taking the time to learn what they need to learn in order to succeed.

Failure mode 3

  • ‘I should.’

A successful Australian told me they have a term for folks who ‘should’ all over themselves.  They call them ‘gonna’s', someone who is always ‘gonna’ do something, they already ‘know’ to do, if they had time.

So I’m about to tell you what successful people do differently than the prior three failure modes.  If, in response, you have any of these thoughts;

  • I don’t have time
  • I know
  • I should

then maybe you should stop and think about doing something differently.

Failure mode 4

  • ‘I’m not comfortable’
  • ‘I’m afraid of…’
  • ‘I just can’t…’
  • ‘I  just don’t want to…’
  • ‘I can’t see myself there doing that…’
  • ‘I would be embarrassed…’
  • ‘I wouldn’t fit in…’

We employ avoidance behaviors to protect ourselves.  For a bunch of psychological reasons I won’t go into here, we consciously and unconsciously avoid putting ourselves into the very circumstances that would help us most.

The four failure modes summed up:

I don’t have time to do what I know I should do.  I’m uncomfortable just thinking about it so I don’t listen and avoid thinking about it.  Then I go back to doing what I’ve been doing and accepting the results I’ve been getting.

Success mode 1

The most successful 3 or 4 percent of the population think differently than most of us.  Success mode first comes from changing your thinking habits.  This doesn’t happen instantly.  You have to use your conscious mind to retrain your sub-conscious mind (where habits are physical neural networks that must be rewired to sub-consciously produce different responses.)

Replace the thought ‘I don’t have time’ with

  • ‘I have all the time I need.’

You have the exact same 24 hours a day that the most successful people in the world have.  They aren’t getting greater results because they have a 36 hour day.  They know they have all the time they need and have all the time they are ever going to get – 24 hours each day.  You can’t manage time you can only manage how you use it.  More on this below.

Success mode 2

Replace the thought/verbal response ‘I know’ with ‘Isn’t that interesting.’  Knowledge is the enemy of learning. Stop telling people to shut up and stop telling your brain to stop listening.  Successful people are present in the moment and get learning from every instant of their lives.  They are constantly giving and getting – not shutting down and numbing themselves.  There is much learn on this subject.

Success mode 3

Replace the thought/verbal response ‘I should’ with I will or I won’t.  If it is ‘I will’ then stop and put it on your schedule.  Put something on your schedule to take a next step even if it is just a baby step.  For new behaviors baby steps are best for most.  Anything else is I won’t.  Really successful people are masters of ‘I won’t’.

Success mode 4

Replace avoidance behaviors with courage and self – discipline.  Really successful people have learned that their ‘comfort zone’ is the most dangerous place on earth.  If you are not growing you are dying. Being in your comfort zone is dying.  It might be more comfortable to sit on your couch and watch tv than working out or getting something done.  It is certainly easier.  Which one produces better health?  Which one leads to brain and body death?

Jim Rohn said you have two choices – the pain of self-discipline or the pain of regret.  One of them is far far worse. Get out of your comfort zone and stay out of it.

Success mode summary.

I will take the time to learn and do what successful people do even if it scares me, makes me uncomfortable or is hard for me to do.

I can help you with a baby step in this direction.  Never underestimate the power of a baby step in a new direction.  The significance is in the change of direction not the size of the first step.  Any step in a new direction is powerful in itself.

Really successful people choose how to invest their time by being clear on their priorities.  They get clear on their priorities by setting goals and making plans.  Are you uncomfortable with this?  Most people are uncomfortable.  Some have tried and since it didn’t work the first time – have given up.  Unrealistic expectations are another avoidance behavior.  We’re you an expert driver the first time you got behind the wheel?  Did it take a few drives before you were comfortable?  How many before you were an expert who could talk and drive at the same time?

I’ll teach you a thorough and repeatable process for setting goals and making plans.  You have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone and learn it.  No one can do your learning for you and no one can do your exercise for you. You won’t do it perfectly the first time.  You may be very uncomfortable at first.  Get over it.

If you are ready to stop not having enough time, to stop ‘I know-ing’ yourself into numbness, to stop scolding yourself with ‘I should’s’ and to stop avoiding growing because its uncomfortable then click on the link below and book yourself into a great baby step toward a new future.

If you already have goals and plans then I know you’ll click on the link because you are always hungry to learn how to do things better and we just might a have process that will help you improve yours.  While you’re at it – get of few of your friends who need to get started and out of avoidance to come along with you.

Good luck!

Here’s the link, click here to start a wonderful new path and become uncommon.

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

denniswillis@actioncoach.com

December 21, 2011

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Are You Master of Your Domain?

September 27th, 2011 · Uncategorized

The next day after that famous episode of Seinfeld I went to lunch at a busy food court in a downtown mall. Standing in line I heard several people laughing over the show. It was that impactful. I never foresaw the day its central question would appear to me as the central question regarding success.

The show’s specific example is not what I mean. The singular self indulgence that the cast members wagered they could resist is only one of the many self indulgences that tempt all of us daily. Alcohol, drugs, food, television, and I think I would add watching professional sports to this short list of examples of other indulgences and distractions to which most of us succumb.

To be master of your domain is to assert will power, to make choices that lead to what you want. Which means we have to talk about what you want, what we want.

We can want two things at the same time. We can want to be in better physical condition and we can want to eat like a king. One of these things leads to a long active life, one leads to a host of ailments. One is a short term indulgence the other a healthy lifestyle. One is delicious right now, one is not. It is something else. Something successful people seem to appreciate more than the majority.

They are masters of their domain and hold most of the wealth on our planet. The self disciplined are the successful few. They are able to say no to a host of indulgences and distractions every day while most of us give in to being part of the most overweight, drugged and distracted civilization in history.

The standard recipe for success starts with clarity about what you want. You have to want it more than the next beer, the next cupcake, the next episode, the next game, the next hit, the next whatever. You have to want it bad enough to fuel your self-discipline. To make yourself strong enough to resist choices that don’t lead to what you want.

Too much beer and pizza, as much as I love them, lead to a fat miserable life. Daily exercise, as much as I resist it, leads to a long healthy life. We’ve achieved a pinnacle in which our success delivers the ability to indulge ourselves to ruin. To succeed today you need more clarity and more self-discipline. It appears about 3% of our populations has the right mixture naturally.

The rest of us have to work to learn the skills of clarity of goals and the self-discipline to make the moment to moment choices that lead to them. We have to become masters of our own domain.

I choose to believe that I can learn to be more self-disciplined, that I can learn to set and work toward clear goals.

To that end I’ve started doing research on how to develop more self-discipline. Below are some of the online resources I’ve found to help myself.

 

http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/will-power-how-to-improve-your-personal-self-discipline

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/self-discipline/

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Top 10 Successful Business Owner Disciplines: #1

July 29th, 2010 · Uncategorized

 

There is an astonishing place that holds who we are and how we feel.  It remains the most impressive computing device known to humanity.  It is cheap – we all get one.  If scientists we’re able to make something similar – it would have a gigantic manual and a crew of technicians to operate it.  They’d work fulltime on how to get the most use out of it.

We are born with one but we don’t get a manual.  There are thousands of books written on learning to use it – but most of us don’t read a single one.  Most of us fumble about and learn to use it well enough to just get by. Some of us do far worse.  Studying the most successful business owners teaches us how they use theirs; here’s the how and why they work on good thinking.

image

If you agree that you are in charge of your own mind then you agree that you choose your own thoughts.  Choosing your own thoughts means you get to choose among positive thoughts, negative thoughts, angry thoughts and sad thoughts – to name a few.  Since there are always many perspectives, you get to choose positive thoughts or negative thoughts, for example, about everything.  You can choose to think the glass is half full or the glass is half empty.  You can choose to think you have failed at something or that you’ve learned better about how to succeed next time.  Choosing our thoughts is the one and only thing over which we really have control.

image

Your thoughts create your feelings.  If you choose to think negatively you will feel negative feelings.  Here’s an example.  If you try to make a sale and you don’t get the sale you might walk away from the prospect and think “I’m terrible at sales.”  You will then feel bad and you won’t feel like trying to make another sale. 

image

Your negative thinking and subsequent bad feelings have completely sapped your energy.  Your thoughts create your feelings which create your energy.  You can be just as honest with yourself and use positive thoughts to increase your energy.  In the last example you could walk away from the prospect and choose to think “I have a gigantic opportunity to improve at selling.”  While this is roughly the same meaning as “I’m terrible at sales” it leaves you with a whole different feeling.  Say them both out loud and see how you feel. 

image 

Your choice of thoughts determines your feelings and your energy level.  Your energy level is your capacity to act.  If you feel good about yourself you then have energy to take actions that lead to reaching your goals.  If you beat yourself up with negative thinking you drain your energy and are unable to act.  You hide out in your comfort zone.

Really successful people have a natural or learned discipline of thinking positively and seeing opportunities in everything.  Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you will or believe you won’t, you’re right.”   If you want an extreme example of how powerful taking responsibility for your thinking can be then read Viktor Frankl’s 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning.  It changed my life and taught me this lesson.  It is still changing my life.

Successful business owners have disciplined thinking and work hardest on improving their thinking.  “To have a better business you need to be a better business person.”  “It is more important to work on yourself than your business” (Jim Rohn). 

The first discipline is the discipline of constantly working and learning to improve your thinking. 

There’s much more to the story – get a book!  I always recommend Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as a starting point. 

I also put on a seminar (in Northeast Ohio) sharing this and many more lessons from successful business owners.  If you are not in Northeast Ohio search actioncoach.com for someone doing the same in your area.

Here’s the link to the updated flier – now it includes comments of current attendees.  Reenergize Your Profits…
Here is a link to a page of comments by current & prior attendees.
"A Slap in the Face". 

I’m off to take advantage of a great opportunity to improve my thinking – how about you?

Read a good book on thinking Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition).

Dennis

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“Everyone is Leaving Northeast Ohio”

July 14th, 2010 · Fear, Negative Thinking, Positive Thinking

If you are a business owner in Northeast Ohio like I am, then you have had conversations like the one I had yesterday.  Here is what to do about it.

The “things are so bad…” conversation. Yesterday, this well educated and scarily smart business owner leaned closer over the table and whispered, “I think the real unemployment rate in Cleveland is probably over twenty percent.”  He went on to real off a bunch of facts and brutal realities about our area.  He capped it off with, of course, “Lebron really hurt this area.”

Boomtown. I was born in Cleveland and grew up in Elyria.  My father owned a construction company.  He moved us to Elyria in the early 60’s because it was booming.  For a year or two Elyria was the fastest growing city in the entire country.  Northeast Ohio was booming.  People were moving here from everywhere. 

We were at the top then.  We were making cars and steel and tires and machine parts and a whole bunch of other stuff and selling it everywhere.  Cash was being pumped into our region and people were following it.  Houses and schools and malls were being built and jobs were plentiful. 

Are we at the bottom now?  There were some down times between then and now.  The original oil crisis had lines at gas stations we’ve never seen again.  The original financial crisis had the savings and loan collapse and our government bail out plastered on the front pages.  Some say it is worse now.  Some think we are heading for a double dip. 

Boom then bust then?  So what did I say that stopped my friend and changed the nature of the conversation.  “Things come in cycles don’t they?”, I asked.  “You are saying we are at the bottom of the cycle right?  Well, what comes next?”  He brightened up a bit and asked, “So you’re saying we’ve got nowhere to go but up?”

We are in this together.  Belief is one thing action is another.  He sent me an email later on asking me for ideas on how we can help each other make money.  Now we’re talking! 

Action.  Don’t get your hopes up – get into action.  Positive attitude and positive thinking are important.  Positive action is necessary.  What are you willing to do?  Jim Rohn said, “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.”  Ghandi said “be the change you want to see in the world.”  How can we be better – each of us has to work on ourselves – then we all become better.

Opportunity.  Here is just one little idea.  Positive cash flow is needed in our area.  Let’s focus on just that.  Companies that sell products and services outside Northeast Ohio bring cash into Northeast Ohio.  Let’s identify these companies and find them some referrals.  If you own such a company tell us about yourself so the rest of us can help you find business.  I just now created a Facebook page for this purpose.  It is http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Refer-NEO/122978311079105?filter=1. Click now  and type in a sentence and a link to your website.  Take just this little action.  Let’s see what we can do together.

Better.  No matter how good we are – we can always be better.  I’m part of an organization dedicated to that belief.  What we’re learning from doing that with 10,000 business every week is available to you too.  Contact me (denniswillis@actioncoach.com).  Here is a link to a few videos of business owners of various size businesses who are succeeding at getting better results http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=actioncoach+testimonial&aq=0.

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Dennis Willis’s 5 Laws and 3 Caveats for Getting My Business Card at a Networking Event

May 18th, 2010 · Uncategorized

(a happy grab and summarization of all the wisdom from a LinkedIn thread shown below – thank you!)

The 5 Laws

If I give you my card at a networking meeting you would treat me best by:
  1. Asking me if I want to be added to your newsletter/marketing database.

    2. Ask me right then and there or ask me via a personal email or follow up call.  Don’t just assume it is okay.  Doing so without my explicit permission risks offending me.

  2. It is okay, and even impressive to send me a card saying it was nice to meet.
  3. It is okay, and even impressive to call or email me to ask my permission to contact me further or put me in your newsletter and/or marketing db.
  4. It is not okay to pass my card onto anyone else without my explicit persmission.
  5. Following these rules shows you respect me and I will respect you.  It will also keep your marketing db and costs lower.

The 3 Caveats

  1. Not everyone follows these rules – to expect them to do so is unrealistic.  People who don’t follow these rules are often well meaning individuals treating you like they themselves expect to be treated.  An example of where the “Platinum Rule” is better than the “Golden Rule.”  Graciously advise people who violate the rules as to  how you like to be treated.  Don’t publicly flog them – it just makes you look bad. Put repeat violaters in your spam list.
  2. The lessons of “Green Eggs and Ham” still apply – you just have to be more circumspect, personal, polite and patient if your conviction keeps you from understanding or accepting that two letter word.
  3. If I put my card in a fishbowl, enter a contest, sign up for white paper, ebook, whatever then I have given implicit permission for you to “unleash the hounds”.  I do appreciate, however, the additional little checkbox that let’s me have the white paper and still curtail the hounds pursuit.
Please send suggestions or revisions to denniswillis@actioncoach.com.
Dennis

Thanks to Joseph Pucci for this question and thread!

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=18108919&gid=41352&commentID=16481022&trk=view_disc

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